Hope
by ArwenLalaith
Summary: Tag to 'Solitary Man'. Having hope means to believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel even when it's too dark to see it. Co-written with Confetti Leaves.


Some days, when they came home after a case, she liked to stand in the empty room they'd designated as the nursery and imagine how perfect life would be when they actually had a child to occupy the room. Those were the good days.

Today wasn't one of those days. Today was one of the days where she'd pause fleetingly at the threshold, but couldn't bring herself to step inside, to look at the stark white walls they'd planned on painting a pale green, to imagine the bassinet and the rocking chair and the softly cooing infant only to open her eyes to an empty room. It was the kind of day where it hurt too much.

It seemed like those days came more and more often lately and sometimes she thought it would have been so much easier if they'd never agreed to start trying than to have to live with this heartache everyday.

Everyday for more than a year, she'd stood outside the empty nursery and debated going in – at first it had made her happy to daydream about painting and decorating and having her own little baby, but now it was just a painful reminder of all those unfulfilled dreams, of the fact that they'd decided to hold off on redoing the room for exactly these reasons, knowing that having the room ready to be home to an infant but not have that infant to live there would be too hard to live with everyday.

Today, she couldn't even bring herself to look at the gaping hole that mirrored that in her heart.

He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and sighed. He knew exactly what she had on her mind. It broke his heart that the room they had set aside for the baby more than a year ago seemed to be destined to remain unoccupied. Everyday, it hurt him a little more to watch her dream about being a mother only to be disappointed.

Everyday, he wondered why was it so difficult for them to have a child. They were both healthy and their tests showed that their chances of having their own children were as good as anyone else's.

Everyday, he wondered why there were so many people who could bear to abandon a helpless infant, but when they wanted a baby so badly, they couldn't have one. He already knew they would love the little life they created more than anything.

As heartbreaking as the wait was, he knew he couldn't give up because their baby would be worth the wait. He only prayed that she would continue believe it too.

For a long time, she said nothing. Sometimes, she'd pour her heart out to him, but he had a feeling that she internalized a lot of the pain, suffering in silence. Part of it was just who she was, she'd never really be able to stop compartmentalizing; part of it, he guessed, was a worry that he wouldn't understand – she'd been waiting for this a lot longer than he had, the loss he was experiencing wasn't the same.

Eventually, the tears came, as they always did. He knew there was nothing he could say that was going to make it any easier, make it hurt any less, so he just held her, wiping away her tears, struggling to maintain his composure. Some days it was harder than others.

He turned her in his arms, gently kissing away her tears. It could have been her imagination, but she thought she saw tears in his eyes as well. She knew it hurt him as much as it hurt her to want something so much but to not have it. She reached up to stroke his cheek and finally whispered, "It's not fair."

"I know."

"I'm so scared, Derek." As soon as those words reached his ears, he quietly wrapped her tighter in his arms, as if to protect her from everything else that was hurting her.

"What are you scared of?" he asked quietly, running a comforting hand down her back; to be honest, he was a little frightened as well.

She shut her eyes and bit at her lip, seemingly afraid of saying it aloud, as if that would make it true. "I'm afraid the universe is punishing me...and I'm afraid the universe is right. Maybe we aren't supposed to have a baby."

"That's ridiculous," he argued, knowing she needed to hear it, but also because he had his own doubts. His faith wasn't always strong, but he couldn't believe that God wouldn't give a child to two good people who wanted one _so _badly without a reason. "I _know _you were meant to be a mother."

"You don't know that."

"I _do_ know," he insisted, "No one is more suited to be a mother than you. I've seen you with children, you're good with them. No one will love our baby more than you will. Why would anyone not want you to be a mother?" He looked into her eyes and saw the hesitation there. "There's something else." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"I'm so scared that if we have a baby and something happens to us...what will happen?" she whispered. "I don't want our baby to be like Jody. I don't want her to grow up without us..."

"Honey, we've talked about this," he murmured.

"I know," she sighed, "I _know _we've talked about it. But seeing that little girl lose her entire father, lose the closest thing to a family she's ever known...I don't want that to be our child. Maybe there's a reason..."

"Stop," he said desperately, worry flooding his chest as she voiced everything he'd been trying to block out, "Don't say that. Our family won't end up like theirs, that won't be our baby – it just won't."

"You _don't _know that," she repeated.

"I do know that," he insisted again. "I know why you're scared. You grew up with an absent mother and I lost my dad a little too early. I don't want the same thing to happen to our baby too and I won't _let_ it happen."

"How are you going to do that? With our jobs, you never know what happens next."

"I've been thinking... We can't keep doing what we're doing when we have a baby," he said. "I don't want to be away from our child five days a week. I don't want to leave her behind with someone else. I want us to raise her, not watch someone else raise her. I want to be a real daddy, not some distant father who's never there."

"What are you suggesting?"

"We'll start over, start a new life – a life that lets us spend as much time as we can with our little one." She bit at her lip hesitantly, then opened her mouth to say something, but he didn't let her get the words out. "Just listen," he said gently, "I've still got a house out in Chicago, it would be the perfect place for a kid to grow up – the perfect place to spend the rest of our lives together."

Still, she seemed hesitant. He pressed on, "Do you want to be away from our baby five days a week? Do you want to come home, only to find that she has already fallen asleep and you'll have to leave before she wakes up in the morning?"

"No..."

"Me either," he whispered. "I know you love your job, so do I, but we have to make sacrifices for our family. I'm willing to drop everything and move to Chicago as long as you're with me."

"You're too good to be true." She rested her head on his chest, holding him close to her as she breathed in his comforting scent. She sighed quietly as he ran a soothing hand down her back. "But will that change anything?"

"Of course it will," he assured. "We'll have a normal life, it'll be less risky, and we'd have more time with each other. Life would be less stressful too when we don't have to be worried about getting shot every other day. Didn't the doctor say stress might be one of the reasons why we're not pregnant yet? And if that still doesn't work, there are many other methods we can try," he reminded.

But he knew she didn't want other methods – she didn't want to watch a surrogate carry their baby, she didn't want in-vitro – she wanted to carry their own child and she wanted it to happen naturally. It was the part of her that still felt like she was being punished, like she deserved not to get pregnant.

"Baby, look at me," he said, gently tilting her chin up so he could look into her sad brown eyes. "You just need to stop worrying, stop focusing on the things we can't change or you'll drive yourself crazy. Things will happen when they're supposed to happen. Not if, _when_. It's not your fault it hasn't happened yet – it's no one's fault – but when the time is right, we'll get our baby. Just promise me you won't give up hope."

She remained silent for several long moments and he couldn't tell if she was just lost in thought or if she'd already lost hope. "Promise me," he repeated, a hint of pleading in his voice; he couldn't bear to see her lose hope over the one thing that he knew would make her so happy.

"I promise," she whispered, sounding close to tears again.

"Don't cry, baby," he cupped her cheeks, gently kissing the tear stains on her face. "I love you so much and I won't give up on you or on our baby. Because I know that there will be a baby or even two or three babies in our future. Our hands will be so full," he said, smiling softly at the image he'd once seen in his dreams.

"Really?"

"Yeah," he smiled. "We could even adopt. There are so many children that are waiting for someone to love them and we know we have more than enough love to spare." He tried painting a hopeful future for her, for them. "The house I have back in Chicago has three bedrooms. We have one room to ourselves, one for the nursery, and the other one we could use as a study at first. We can convert that into a nursery when the second baby comes along. How does that sound?" he asked gently.

"I really like that," she whispered, "But are you sure that will happen for us?"

"Yes, it will," he said firmly. "No one else is more suited to be parents than us. We have more love to give to our baby than anyone else. The universe would be stupid to not give us a baby. You're gonna be a great mommy," he added.

"I don't know," she sighed, "I don't have the best example. What if I turn out to be like my mother?"

"You won't. You love our baby too much to let her go through what your mother put you through. I lost my role model when I was little, but we can learn," he encouraged, "I know that Mama will be more than happy to teach us. And of course we'll make mistakes, but who doesn't? I know we can be really good."

"You're gonna be an amazing daddy," she whispered.

"Not without you, I won't."


End file.
